The story of the Gospel Light Hour

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 14/09/2017 (3271 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

On Oct. 20, the 70th anniversary of Mennonite Brethren broadcasting in Winnipeg will be celebrated with a banquet at North Kildonan Mennonite Brethren Church.

What is now a separately incorporated ministry called Square One World Media began as a program called The Gospel Light Hour on local radio station CKRC, the brainchild of Mennonite Brethren Bible College students Henry Poetker, Henry Brucks and Bert Loewen. They began broadcasting live on Feb. 23, 1947 from CKRC’s Main Street studio.

My husband, John C. Klassen, sang in the radio choir and his sister, Tilly, accompanied them. I joined them very soon after our marriage. John M. Schmidt directed the program from 1951 to 1963, and he took us on tours to the western provinces. He was nothing if not enthusiastic. I remember going to British Columbian churches by car. Though I thought he was a vibrant speaker, I thought very little of his penchant for driving much too quickly around corners of the mountainous roads on the island.

When he finally got eye-glasses, he said, “Wow! There are lots of signs along the roads!”
Our guardian angels must have been very busy.

Thankfully, we did not have to sing live on-air. But our recording studio, a lovely, picturesque church on Logan Avenue had acoustics which did not discern between street noises and our singing. We were very happy to leave that place for a simple studio, built on Kelvin Street (now Henderson Highway), that was comfortable, and soundproof.

In 1960, my husband and I travelled to Los Angeles, to meet and hear the Fuller Quartet and watch them in action. We learned a great deal, hearing the singers rehearse, and broadcast, together with a choir conducted by John Lundberg, the first tenor in the quartet. It was quite a privilege to watch them record The Old Fashioned Revival Hour.

When Lundberg came to Winnipeg to give our singers a workshop, he said: “You need to get a good piano!”

Which we did. We were lucky to purchase a Petrof 10-foot concert-grand piano from Lage Brothers that had been used once in the Canadian National Exhibition in Toronto. It was originally priced at $60,000 dollars and we paid about $3,500.

In my 70 years of playing of simple church hymns and professional classical work, there has been no piano that has even come close to that marvelous instrument. 

To be continued next week.

Bertha Klassen is a community correspondent for East Kildonan.